NINA KIRIKI HOFFMAN AIRBORN * As this issue goes to print, Nina Kiriki Hoffman’s popular story from our January 1995 issue, “Home for Christmas,” sits atop the preliminary Nebula ballot. She has had a good year. Her novel. The Silent Strength of Stones, has received critical acclaim, and at the end of 1995, she sold two more books. * Many of Nina’s characters recur in her work. Tasha and Terry, the twins in this self-contained novella, also appear in two delightful novels (which are among the handful of books Nina has in her office awaiting rewrites). “Airborn” also inspired our beautiful Bob Eggleton cover. IF I HAD TO PICK MY FAVORITE way of going home, I wouldn’t choose the one I was traveling now. It would be more fun to come home for Christmas — where I could look forward to spending time with my twin sister and my parents, and the emotional atmosphere would be hey, let’s have fun, let’s do all the traditional things and enjoy each others’ company. And afterward I could leave again, heading back to my own place. Not like now. Scooting up Oregon back roads in my tiny antique Honda, I had most of my independence squirreled around me; my clarinet case bumped my heels whenever I took my feet off the pedals. I was going home in half-defeat. I had moved away from home at seventeen, finding an apartment in Spores Ferry, a major town an hour away from the small town of Atwell where I grew up. I wasn’t even eighteen yet, and I had to move back to my parents’ house. I had made a promise to the powers of air that I would learn about them and become their disciple if they helped me through something I couldn’t have survived myself, and they had delivered. The teacher I needed lived in Atwell. So: I was on my way home, on my way back to school. Cultivated fields spread out from the road, their green skirts bordered by woods. I slowed at the top of Sourgrass Hill to look at the Crooks Farm produce stand. It was autumn, and fruits and vegetables were ripe. Maybe I should bring Mom some apples as a hostess gift. It would reinforce my guest status in the house where I had grown up, be a pledge that I planned a visit, not a lifetime. A man stood beside the road, his thumb out. He wore moccasins, dusty leather pants, and a fringed leather jacket. A beat-up narrow-brimmed hat sat low on his head. His scraggly dark hair came down to his shoulders, and his face, as tanned as the leather he was wearing, made his pale green eyes look like lights at night. H e stared at me and I heard a whisper of music in my mind, the faint squeal of a fiddle. I felt sparks traveling along my muscles My hands gripped the steering wheel tighter, turned the wheel toward the man. I shook my head, pulled myself together, and drove on, without stopping for apples or the hitchhiker. What had I been thinking? There was no room in the car. Besides, the guy gave me the creeps. He looked too much like a maniac from stories after lights-out at camp. In the rear-view mirror I saw a big gold car pull over. The leather man climbed into the back without even speaking to the driver. I picked up as much speed as I could. Whispers sounded around me, but I couldn’t make out the words. If I had my air powers already, maybe I could have strengthened the voices so I would know what they were talking about. The big gold car passed me on an uphill climb, and I saw those pale eyes in that dark face staring out the rear window at me. They burned their image into my mind so that I kept seeing them even after the car was out of sight over the hill. Atwell hadn’t changed since the spring, except the leaves on the maples along Main had grown bigger and turned a darker green, and the movie showing at the Cinemart was different. When I reached my parents’ street, everybody’s cars were gone from the driveway of our white one-story house. More was probably clerking at the flower store where she worked, Dad worked nights at the local two star restaurant, and might have been home at noon on a Saturday, but he wasn’t; there were lots of places my twin sister Terry might be. I got out the key I’d taken off my key ring for four months of freedom in Spores I got out the key I’d taken off my key ring for four months of freedom in Spores and unlocked the door. The smells of burnt toast, fabric softener, and dust greeted me, whispering that there was no escape from home. Still standing on the front stoop, I closed the door, took a deep breath of outside air, and opened the door again, looking at our front hall. There was the occasional table with its stack of opened and discarded mail, and the coat rack so deep in coats it looked like a hugfest, with Terry’s tennis racket peeking out between hems. Everybody’s winter boots and duck shoes stood in an orderly line against the wall. Mom was preparing for the rams early. The skittery brown runner carpet lay there on the hardwood floor, waiting to slip out from under the unwary. Carrying my purse and my clarinet, I stepped over the threshold. This didn’t look like the house of a powerful witch (my sister) or even a halfway witch (me). I wondered if Mom and Dad had figured out about that yet. When Terry and I were cursed with witchcraft by a semi-benevolent ghost on our twelfth Halloween, we had agreed without even discussing it not to tell Mom and Dad. We practised in private. When we found our mentor, Natalya Clayton, we told our parents we had joined Adopt-a-Grandmother to explain why we spent so much time at her house. We called Natalya Gran to help maintain the fiction. Our parents never even figured out Natalya was the principal of Atwell Middle School — they weren’t big on PTA meetings or Open House or Family Night. Later, when we went out at night a lot, Mom and Dad didn’t say much. But then, they had never kept a very close eye on us. I went on through the kitchen, glancing at the stack of dirty dishes clustered around the sink. I checked my power reservoir. I had been practicing channeling lately, inviting power to come to me, welcoming it, storing it, taking it out to stroke so that we would get to know each other and work well together. A fraction of it, a little white dart of power, would clean those dishes and put them away. On the other hand, I should start as I meant to go on; none of those dishes were mine. I went through the laundry room to the servants’ quarters, two little rooms in the back of the house just big enough for a bed, bedside table, and a dresser each, with a shared closet in the middle. Terry had the right room, and I had the left. When we were little, we had borrowed each other’s clothes until we didn’t know what belonged to whom; by the time we reached ten, though, we had sorted ourselves out. She turned tomboy and I went Laura Ashley. sorted ourselves out. She turned tomboy and I went Laura Ashley. When I saw Terry two weeks before in Spores, she had changed again, wearing stylish clothes in strong single colors. Her short dark hair had been cut by a professional instead of by her standing in the bathroom and checking it out in the mirror as she went, or by me, same place, with her growling at me every time I tried something fancy. I still had long dark hair which I curled, and was still wearing ruffly things with little flowers all over them, and I felt stupid. When I saw kids my age on the street I felt like a visitor from another time. I felt I was ready for neon, but it was hard to redefine myself. My room still had its orange and yellow butterfly kite hanging from the ceiling, its ribbon tail tacked in swirls across the wall. From the dust on my dresser, I could tell nobody had been in there since I left. I put my clarinet and my purse on the dresser. I opened the window, which looked out on the back patio, Dad’s rusty barbecue, the lawn, and the stained wood fence around the yard. I held my hands out, palms up, and said, “Powers of air, I welcome you. I invite you. Be with me in this place.” A breath of air blew across my palms. “Thank you,” I said. I sat on the bed, closed my eyes, and thought about my power reservoir. I released a tiny dart of power, instructing it to chase away the dirt and dust in the room and leave everything smelling like sunlight on morning grass. Unlike the dishes, my room was my responsibility. When I opened my eyes the room was cleaner than it had ever been before. The butterfly kite sparkled like sunrise above me. “See, Tasha? That wasn’t hard, was it?” said Terry from the threshold. I jumped about a foot. “Where’d you come from?” “I was studying in my room.” “But your car —” “— is in the shop. Oil change. I thought you weren’t getting in till about three.” “It didn’t take as long to pack as I thought it would.” “Not if you only brought your clarinet,” she said, and grinned. “Did your “Not if you only brought your clarinet,” she said, and grinned. “Did your boyfriend help?” “Not during the day.” “I forgot.” I gripped one hand in the other, remembering saying goodbye to Danny in my Spores Ferry apartment just before dawn that morning. He had said, “Are you sure you want to do this?” “Yes,” I told him. A breeze had sneaked in and lifted a strand of my hair. I held up my hand and felt the spiral touch of a tiny whirlwind. “You see? Already I have in ends.” He reached out and the whirlwind brushed his fingers. His eyebrows rose. “Well, okay,” he said, “but I’m saving the apartment for you.” I hugged him hard. “Wherever I am, you’re welcome,” I said, letting formality touch my voice. I wanted to make it a binding invitation for both of us. “Atwell may be out of my range.” “We have a nice dark basement.” “Heh,” he said, his eyes laughing. Then he sat up. “The day is troubling my blood,” he said. “I have to go.” He kissed me, turned to mist, and flowed out my window, seeping down the side of the building and into his basement apartment, where he would sleep the sleep of death all day. I had stood in the middle of my apartment after he left, thinking. At ten, I had been sure there was magic in the world, but I had never seen any. At eleven, I wasn’t so sure anymore. At twelve, I had met that ghost… . After that, everything went wild. It was difficult for me to see the world as flat, understandable, predictable, the way I almost had at eleven. Now, every time I looked hard at anything, it turned surprising. I had looked at Danny a lot. Packing, I had taken only half my things. The apartment stayed mine; my landlord had told me so. landlord had told me so. I had come home in half-defeat, half-victory, because I still had my own place, away from home. “I’ll help you unload the car,” said Terry. We went outside and fished things out of my car. “Oof,” said Terry, scraping her side as she pulled a book box out from behind the seat. “This job could be a lot easier.” “Not if we want to maintain a low profile in this neighborhood,” I said, lifting out my Rabbit Track Maranta plant by its hook. That was one of our teacher’s basic principles: keep your craft quiet. Terry rubbed her side and smiled at me. “Just checking.” She stacked one box on another and carried them into the house. “Checking what?” I yelled after her. One of our neighbors walked by, a golden retriever on a leash dragging him. “Whether you’re practicing your disciplines,” Terry yelled back. I held the plant above the dog’s nose range and patted him. The neighbor smiled at me and moved on. Terry and I unloaded the rest of my things in silence. We put everything on the floor of my room except my plant and my suitcase. The plant went on top of my sparkling clean dresser with my clarinet, and the suitcase I set on my bed. I opened it. “Have you been keeping the craft quiet?” I asked my sister Terry sat on the bed beside my suitcase. “Very quiet. I barely do anything at home anymore. Mom and Dad have been looking at me sideways lately. They keep wondering why you left. I guess Dad’s feeling guilty because he never saw it coming, but then, who did?” I wasn’t sure even I had seen it coming. It had surprised me when I decided to leave home. I had never done anything without Terry before. But I had awakened one morning in my little room thinking that as soon as I stepped out my bedroom door Terry would be on my case about how I wasn’t practicing anything enough and did I want to be a halfway witch, what was anything enough and did I want to be a halfway witch, what was wrong with me? The only place I felt comfortable and safe anymore was sleep. And I had thought: I can go somewhere else. I can get away from this. I can. Life spread out in front of me like a carrying sea, promising distances and treasures and places to go. I went, and I was glad to go. It was the right thing to do, I had to make coming back the right thing to do, too. “So where do you practice?” I asked. “I found a game trail that goes up the side of Owl Butte. For people without flashlights or night eyes it’s awfully hard to find after dark. I put a blur on it after I go up. It leads to a clearing halfway up the butte. I’ve put wards around the clearing — no sign anybody else has been using it in the past twenty years — and I work there. I’ll take you tonight if you want.” “I’m not sure yet,” I said, putting shirts, skirts, and dresses on hangers. “Discipline,” said Terry, nagging again already. I frowned into the closet. I planned to be disciplined, but if she nagged me about it, I might, just to be perverse, resist. That wouldn’t help me and my promise to air. Getting her to stop nagging would be hard, though; she had the habit. I shoved her clothes sideways on the bar in the closet, hung mine up, then collected myself and faced her. “I don’t know what disciplines I’ll be practicing yet. I have to see Gran.” “What do you mean?” “I have a direction now,” I said. “I’ve consecrated myself to the powers of air.” Terry frowned ferociously at me. I emptied the rest of my suitcase’s contents into dresser drawers, looked at my boxes, and sighed. “I think I want to go see Gran now,” I said. “I’ll call,” said Terry. She went to phone in the kitchen. I studied myself in the mirror behind the plant on my dresser. My hair had wilted since the morning session with blow dryer and curling brush. I got a brush and an elastic band out of my purse, brushed my hair back, and fastened it into a ponytail. I studied the black eyeliner around my eyes. It brought out the blue, all right, but it made me look like I hadn’t gotten enough sleep, which I hadn’t. My skin was pale, which made my blusher stand out too much, and I’d fretted most of the lipstick tiff my lips. I closed my eyes and called forth a tiny silver of power, asking it to lift the makeup off my face. Heat kissed my cheeks, my eyes and mouth. I opened my eyes. Without eyeliner, mascara, and shadow, my eyes looked small and defenseless. I frowned with my pale lips, shook my head. Air probably wouldn’t care what I looked like. “She’s expecting us — “Terry said from the door, then paused, her eyes widening. “What?” “I just haven’t seen you naked like that in a long time.” Terry never wore makeup. Her lashes and eyebrows were thicker and darker than mine, and she had more natural color. We were identical. How could she have more of something? Maybe she disciplined her way into it? “Well,” I said, and shrugged. “Let’s take my car.” Natalya Clayton lived in a big old house on the edge of town. It was painted slate blue and had a black roof and front porch, and all kinds of little gray knick- knacky bits here and there. When we pulled up at Natalya’s that Saturday afternoon, the house lay sleeping in the sun. The pre-settlement maple in Natalya’s front yard towered above the house. Its leaves were still green; we were shy of the valleys first frost. Natalya was in her front yard, spading up earth. She straightened when we got to the gate. Her black eyes were bright, and her silver hair, most of it in a bun, made a little haze around her head “Tasha, my dear,” she said. She dropped her gardening gloves on the ground and came to hug me. She was so small m my arms, warm as a bird, and strong. For a moment I hugged her with my eyes closed. When I opened them, I was looking toward the big maple, and I saw pale eyes looking back at me. “Oh!” I said, releasing Natalya. “What?” she asked. “The Leather Man,” I said, peering toward the maple. He had been standing beside the trunk, but now he was gone. Natalya frowned. “Where did you learn that name?” “Is that a name? I saw a man all dressed in leather, hitchhiking.” Her eyes widened. “Where?” “On Sourgrass Hill.” I should have bought fruit for Natalya, too. An apple for the teacher. “I almost stopped for him, but there was no room in the car. And… he was just there, but now he’s gone again.” She looked toward the tree a long considering moment, then at me. “Just as well,” she said. “Tasha, you’ve changed. There’s order in you.” “I hope you’ll accept me as a pupil again. I’m ready to learn and apply myself now.” “Let’s have tea,” she said, which was how all our lessons started. She led us into the house. “I think she’s nuts,” Terry told Natalya as we sipped hibiscus tea at the big brown table in the kitchen. I took my last sip of tea and banded my cup to Natalya. She studied the leaves in the bottom. “No, she’s correct,” said Natalya. “She has been granted a boon, and she offers payment. All in alignment with the principles of order. Tasha, I don’t know the special mysteries of the powers of air 51 am a general practitioner. You must seek a guide.” “How many witches can there be in a town this size, Gran?” “You might be surprised. But I’m not talking about a witch guide. You need a